Tag Heaven!

Unfortunately I'm back at work this week in my full time job, having been off for a week in arty heaven....Booo Hissss....  I'm glad I put another week's holiday in for the beginning of May, so only another 2 and a bit weeks at work before I'm off again whoopy ding dong!

I've completed the Creative Chemistry 101 with Tim Holtz and I got the bug for making backgrounds for tags which helped me think differently about making backgrounds for journal pages too.

Here is my favourite tag I made on Monday (1), the background I made with Adirondack alcohol inks. The  sentiment, the silvery circles & the red tiny squares are a Tim Holtz stamp, the heart stamp is from Crafty Corner (stamped using a light blue Adirondack dabber),  the face stamp is Inkylicious, spiral stamp is  Dimension Fourth and My Minds Eye wild asparagus wispy stamp is around the face. I dabbed the edges with a black Adirondack dabber.

Tag 1. 

Here are some of my my Creative Chemistry 101 tags below (2), I'll make something from my backgrounds, probably at the weekend.

Tag 2. 

Then I did a couple of journal page backgrounds below (3), all using Adirondack dabbers and Cosmic Shimmer Mists. A great little tip is to use the Brilliance raindrop ink pads direct on the page because you can get an instant raindrop shape and it has a nice shimmer too, I love this effect.

3. 

More alcohol ink tags (4).

Tags 4.

This one below (5) is using only the Salmon Adirondack alcohol ink with the copper mixative and dropping blending solution onto the tag.

Tag 5. 

Tag No. 6 below is made using only Adirondack dabbers, Salmon, Aqua and Pool. Then I used a Radiant Rain pink mister (just like Cosmic Shimmers). The stars are a That Special Touch mask, the number jumble is Dylusions, and the cross hatch is from a piece of netting I have.

Tags 6. 

I also did these two little makes with the Dina Wakely stamp, which I'll probably use on something at the weekend, but I don't know what yet. The first one I stamped the Dina Stamp, then the hand, and masked the two stamps and stamped the writing. I coloured the Dina stamp using Dylusions inks and a water pen. I used a red and a purple soft pastel to highlight/shadow around the images.

 The second one I used Tim Holtz kraft resist paper (I love the old smell of the paper when you use the heat gun on it).

As you can see I've had a lot of fun

Michelle x

What's inside my head?

I didn't start off making this a self portrait but it ended up that way. I was laid in bed last night still awake after everyone else had gone to sleep. Even the cats were laid on their backs in their beds with their legs in the air. With a busy head I just couldn't get to sleep, and I wished I had a stop button, so I could just shut my head down for the night, so I came up with this journal page. I'm sure we're all familiar with having a head full of....well stuff really.. when we go to bed. Don't you just wish you could hit the stop button?

All stamps used are Tim Holtz, and I used a That Special Touch cogs mask.

I used Lemon Zest and Cut Grass Dylusions inks by Dyan Reaveley.

I used pearl white, and aqua Adirondack dabbers around the edge, and used the wild plumb on the cogs.

If only I could hit the stop button!

Give me a break!

Are you like me, where you know you have a whole list of things to do, and you'd rather be creating something? What do you do, do you give in to the urge to be creative or do you feel the guilt and start crossing off your 'to do' list?

I'm terrible for giving in to the urge to create, and then my family just give me the look! That look which makes me take a reality check, not knowing that I've completely lost the last couple of days in a world of my own.

This was the inspiration for these pages. I just wanna be creative, is that too much to ask? These are the pages in the music book I bought in York on Monday.

The pages started out being gesso'd, then spritzed with bubblegum pink and London blue Dylusions inks. 

Then I used an old Helix alphabet stencil and wiped a baby wipe over it to blot the ink here and there. I was in a shop the other day where I saw some wallpaper samples, I whipped a couple of samples off the testers and I've stuck a piece of anaglypta (love saying this word, it's so funny!) on the top right of this page. I used some of the structure gel to put raised circles and textured paint on the wallpaper piece and random areas of the page.

I used my brown and black pastels to rub over the page to pick up on the texture of the gesso under the ink, and also to lowlight the edges of the wallpaper and some of the raised spots. I went to my local craft shop and they gave me the large circle mask for free, as it was a bit of wood waste, nice one Tom, Thanks. I used this mask with red firefly Cosmic Shimmer Mist.

I used a flourish mask that I bought from Tom (not actually in production), and used my structure gel mixed with blue acrylic paint in the corner. You can really see the piece of wallpaper here. I've painted white, metallic purple, and illuminous pink paint over and around it. I just love the texture. I stamped some flowers around the edge with green and white Adirondack paint dabbers.  Then I started to journal everywhere with Posca pens.

I drew a frustrated me (wishful thinking that I'm that slim!), printed out my sentiment, coloured it with Moss Green Distress ink and added some shading in places. 

I used a Papermania stamp for the little notice boards. I coloured the edges with Posca pens, then painted white acrylic on the inside. I used my brown pastel to distress it a little.

I used Crafty Individuals Postmark stamps in some of the circles.

You will succeed

Well I've certainly been enjoying myself since coming back from York. I've painted 5 journal pages ready for some stamping, I've painted 4 canvases, just background colours for now, and I'm in the middle of doing my two pages in the music book journal, however I'm waiting for some heavy structure gel to dry off, before I can do the next bit I want to do. So in the meantime, I made this little number. As per usual, I ended up doing something completely different to what I started off doing.

I used a dylusions 5x8 diamond border stencil and a palette knife with some paste to make a 3D stencilled image. 

The paste is mixed heavy structure gel with white acrylic paint, and a little splodge of pink and blue paint. I left this to dry for a few hours.

I then sprayed the two pages with melted chocolate and lemon zest dylusions inks, with a bit of black around the edges. I love the way that the white 3D diamonds and border, really stands out here.

I added lots of stamps from Artistic Outpost (bats), Craft stamper freebee from Crafty Notions (heart, stamped with blue acrylic paint), and Tim Holtz (butterflies) mostly with Coffee Archival Ink. I used another dylusions stencil, number jumble here and there with fired brick distress ink. I then got my soft pastels out and did some shading on the hearts, butterflies, and around the edges of the border, and some of the diamonds.

I made the quotation on the computer. It's a quote from Samuel Beckett, but I changed the ending to be more positive!

I love this Crafty Individuals stamp of Whitby Abbey, it always gives the illusion of distance. I like having perspective in a picture.

Can't wait to finish my music book journal page. I drew an image for it last night, Maybe get it on the blog tonight or tomorrow. 

Michelle x

WOYWW 148

I thought I had removed the word verification, but I noticed it was still on! Not any more though Ha!

OMG! In my best Janice impression from Friends. My music book journal is going to work out great. The pages are nice and thick, and there is no seepage onto the next page. Mind you I've caked these two pages in gesso first though. So we'll see how this turns out.

I'm back on the WOYWW, been away for a few weeks, but I'm glad to be taking part again. My list link number is 136.

Back with my haul!

Well I had a great time in York, Sarah Millican was brilliant. I found this great second hand shop called the Banana Warehouse, the window display just stopped me in my tracks straight away. It was just stacked hap hazardly with old vintage tins, tools and tat! The inside was an Aladdin's cave of organised chaos. There were sections for old books, bric a brac, trunks and suitcases and lots of furniture. I spotted an old coronation tin from 1953, and a silver jubilee book from 1977.  This book is full of old black & white pictures from 1953 to 1977, I'm sure I will use them lots. I picked up two fantastic large scale hardback music books too.

I can see one of the music books being used as a journal book, probably the Beethoven's Sonatas, because someone has annotated many of the pages in pencil, and it looks great. There's a Sunday School Prize badge in the front dated to 1932. The other 'Popular Songs' music book is dated to 1913. I love em! Guess how much........only £10 the lot BARGAIN!

Then I went to Art from the Heart this morning, I couldn't wait to get in there. Here's the haul from today. I bought the other 6 dylusion's inks to complete my set. I've got something in mind already to get cracking with tonight, probably using the Dina Wakely stamp, hell yeah! I bought the last copy of Art Journalling mag, it was meant to be.  The 'Art at the Speed of Life' book has some amazing techniques and projects in I can't wait to try out. I still have so much to learn. 

The Posca pens which were recommended to me by Kate Crane, the last time I was at AFTH, I got from Stuff 4 the Office in Ripon (or as my sat nav says Ripe-on! Stupid thing!)

I think I'm going to be very busy on my week off work, and seeing as the weather is...well...erm...CRAP...I guess I have no alternative but to force myself to get inky! What a crying shame.........NOT  :-)

Oooo I forgot to mention, I also booked myself onto one of the AFTH classes, for the 9th of May with Kate Crane, a drawing class for your journal....Must......Contain......My....Excitement......or Kate will think I'm crazy.
Laters
Michelle x

Just realised that word verification was on!! arrgg. I thought I had turned this off. It's not on now though.

Creativity is in the hands

It's been a busy week, all this nice weather means, my only time in the evenings and the weekend is taken up by making the garden more respectable.........What we need is the heavens to open up and to rain solidly for a week, so we don't have a hosepipe ban, and I wouldn't feel so guilty about spending the whole weekend in the craft room!
I'm off work next week, so hopefully I'll get a few things posted on my blog instead of the one measly post on a weekend.....  I promise I'll do more. I'm in a pop choir too and we've had 2 concerts in the past week and a bit.   I have far too many hobbies! ...... My family would agree.

I'm staying over in York on Monday night, we're going to see Sarah Millican, but gonna swing past Art from the Heart on the way back up north on Tuesday morning, oooh I can't wait, payday weekend, bring it on.

Anyway, this latest post is all about not thinking too much about what you're creating just let your hands do the talking. It's not really your creative mind that starts a project off, it's usually just your hands picking up inks and stamps and seeing what happens. Then at some point you know where your going with it.

I used my gilding flakes and flitter glue too on the bird cages.

There are dots of liquid pearls all over too. Had these ages and don't use them enough. For the background I used just London Blue dylusions ink sprayed onto a craft mat, and thinned it out with a bit of water and streaked through some lemon yellow liquid pearls. I love the effect it has on the background. Only you can't see it very well because I covered it with hands and spirals.  I have a pic of the background before I put everything else on, it was pretty. The yellowy streaks are the shimmery lemon yellow liquid pearls.

Is it something we learn, or is it in our genes?

I love having inky hands, they make sense.

Have a good week. Michelle x

Where does the time go?

What happens to the weekends? They go so quickly. Sometimes I think there's a black hole sucking the time away from me. This weekend especially seeing as we've lost an hour! 1 hour is a lot in a crafter's life, we need them all.  Time suckage was the inspiration for this journal page below.

I used my new fabulous Dylusions inks from Art from the Heart, Vibrant Turquoise and London Blue for the background. I love these bright colours. I also used the Dylusions number jumble stencil here and there, using distress inks. I flecked water over too, and blotted for random blotches.

I used Crafty Individuals clocks stamps (CI-255) for all the clocks, but the 2 Big Ben's are from Papermania and Clarity Stamps. 

I drew the black hole with my soft pastels, using white, purple and blue, oh and the black!

I spent a long time shading in between those clocks, basically because I couldn't make my mind up. I did the shading first with orange soft pastels, but didn't think it was dark enough, then a dark blue Derwent pencil and then with black pencil. Quite like the way that has turned out now. I like to see how the page evolves when I change my mind.

The White Rabbit is the brilliant unmistakable Octopode Factory.  I stamped the bold clocks, and the white rabbit on a couple of pages I ripped out of an old calculus book I had. So you'll be able to see the calculations in the background of the stamp, and on the rabbits head too. I coloured them in using Promarkers.

I did the words on my computer. The frayed material stamp is from The Stamp Man. I flicked specks of mica powders mixed in white, red and blue paint all over the page, to create a starry effect.

Where does the time go, I wish I was on the other end of that black hole, where I would have too much time in one day! Oh what I'd do with a day like that!!!!!!!

Entered in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge

New title for the top

Just thought I needed a revamp of my blog.

Here will be the new title for the top.

I will work on something for the sides tonight.

Michelle x

New paperweight for my Journal

I've found a new paperweight for my journal! Only it keeps drinking my water.
This is Holly, she lays over most pieces of artwork, I figure its her way of telling me if it passes her feline standards. She jumped up on the top on Sunday night, and stuck her paw right into a tray of black acrylic paint. It was a two man clean up job before she was let loose again on the carpets.  I reckon I should let her walk into paint across one of my pages and create her own art. I'll do that in the garden though. I once scanned her sat on the scanner. I was going to put it on here, but you'd all think I was mental!

 

My first art journal, Page 1!

I think I've turned a corner.....or been hit by a truck carrying acrylic paints and inks.

I went to GNPE (Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza) in Harrogate on Saturday (yesterday) full of crafty excitement looking to spend a fortune on stamps and things. However, I had to leave the madness of argy bargy women and tiny stalls. I decided seeing as I was in Harrogate I'd go to Art from the Heart. I'd been meaning to go for a while.

I can't stress this enough...I'M SO GLAD I DID!
What a wonderful place to be, why did I even bother going to the GNPE in the first place!
If you're remotely arty you could easily get lost in all the wonderful samples of art, it's better than any art gallery. There are samples everywhere, they're displayed in a way that encourages you to have a closer look, feel it, read it, admire it. The atmosphere is so welcoming too, brought on firstly by Dyan Reaveley who is wonderfully chatty, and passionate about her arty craft and secondly Kate Crane who is equally as friendly and talked to me for ages about Posca pens. Thanks for the advice girls. And thirdly all the staff are very chatty and helpful.

Here I bought my first journal, a red Pink Pig spiral bound book, recommended by Dyan herself. I couldn't wait to get it home, but first I needed some of Dyan's wonderfully bright dylusions inks. I could only afford 6, but I wanted the lot! In fact I wanted the entire shop, but I would be destitute if I did. So page 1. of the journal happened in the space of about an hour, a rampant splurge of 20 years of suppressed creative expressiveness. Needless to say it was very liberating! The results of which are below.

I just couldn't wait to get started. My first page in my first art journal.

Maybe I'll break it down so you can see what it says.

Why has it taken me so long? I'm 41 and only just realised, "hey I’m missing out on something here".  Aimlessly blog hopping, I happened upon Dina's blog. There I stopped and indeed pondered for .......quite a while, 2 days in fact! 

I felt a stirring, something was moving.... hang on a minute Michelle, you went to art college, there's a reason why you love this...remember. With a rush of excitement an arty mojo engulfed my mind...The return of an old friend.  I want to do this too!  Now I have a head full of jumping hyperactive ideas. A trip to Art from the Heart sorted me out, I felt like Alice in Wonder-art-land, a journal was bought and an evacuation was about to commence.

After a frenzied affair with colour I could have sat back with a long sigh and lit a cigarette (if I hadn't packed in 5 years ago), looking at it from afar I realised that here is where I wanted to be, not suppressed by a mundane number crunching job.

I was eating a yellow (gouda) Baby Bell, and was playing with the wax, when I thought, right you're going on too.

This is my happy face! Thank you Art from the Heart. xx

Posted this in Simon Says Stamp challenge

Just found My Mojo Monthly very apt for this post, seeing as I found mine again.

B is for Beach

Well it's about time I put another post up, it's been too long, about 10 days I think.

Been very busy with Wedding invitations, Mother's Day cards and birthday commissions. It's  not that easy to be able to update the blog every day is it? I don't know how some of you guys do it everyday, and make wonderful things too. I just never seem to have the time. And of course I work full time too.

Oh well it's better late than never though so here is the next instalment of my decopatch letters.  I am up to the second 'B' of  'The Hobby Room'. This time I went for a summery beach theme, with stamped shells and small pieces of driftwood.  I think I was the only person walking along Seaton Carew beach on Sunday morning in the strong wind and sleat. The things we do for the love of crafting eh? My face was so numb from the cold that I couldn't even feel my hands touching my skin. Probably because my hands were just as cold as my face!

Anyhoo, I got my acrylic paints out and began being arty again, painting my background colours. I added some decorative sand and tiny stones I'd picked up from Internationale, or some place like that about a year or so ago. It was only about £2 for a big tub of it, I knew I'd be crafting with it at some point or another.

I was just experimenting with a word stamp and some Stazon ink to see if stamping onto shells worked, and I quite liked the effect so I went with it. I have an old dictionary that I cut the sail out of, and I just had to cut it  out of the words, beach and beachcomber. I stuck it to a thin piece of driftwood, and then stuck that into a bigger piece of driftwood, which I wanted to be the boat. I also used a punch to cut out my palm tree.

I glossy accented my waves, so they look wet. I really love this effect it looks great.

I love shells, so I just had to put some shells on, and a little star fish too. They are all real. I picked up the mussel shell at the beach on Sunday too. Oh I nearly forgot my silver fish charm, which incidentally has some random word in another language for fish I think. If you know what it says, please tell me?

Hope you like my shelly, beachy, B. 

Michelle x